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Author: Lance H. Gunderson
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 1995-06-01
Total Pages: 618
ISBN-13: 9780231515986
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBarriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Regional Ecosystems
Author: Valerie Barber
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Published: 2019-11-15
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 1602233985
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe northwest boreal region (NWB) of North America is a land of extremes. Extending more than 1.3 million square kilometers (330 million acres), it encompasses the entire spectrum between inundated wetlands below sea level to the tallest peak in North America. Permafrost gradients span from nearly continuous to absent. Boreal ecosystems are inherently dynamic and continually change over decades to millennia. The braided rivers that shape the valleys and wetlands continually change course, creating and removing vast wetlands and peatlands. Glacial melt, erosion, fires, permafrost dynamics, and wind-blown loess are among the shaping forces of the landscape. As a result, species interactions and ecosystem processes are shifting across time. The NWB is a data-poor region, and the intention of the NWB Landscape Conservation Cooperative is to determine what data are not available and what data are available. For instance, historical baseline data describing the economic and social relationships in association with the ecological condition of the NWB landscape are often lacking. Likewise, the size and remoteness of this region make it challenging to measure basic biological information, such as species population sizes or trends. The paucity of weather and climate monitoring stations also compound the ability to model future climate trends and impacts, which is part of the nature of working in the north. The purpose of this volume is to create a resource for regional land and resource managers and researchers by synthesizing the latest research on the historical and current status of landscape-scale drivers (including anthropogenic activities) and ecosystem processes, future projected changes of each, and the effects of changes on important resources. Generally, each chapter is coauthored by researchers and land and natural resource managers from the United States and Canada.
Author: Craig R. Allen
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2015-04-25
Total Pages: 271
ISBN-13: 9401796823
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAdaptive management is an approach to managing social-ecological systems that fosters learning about the systems being managed and remains at the forefront of environmental management nearly 40 years after its original conception. Adaptive management persists because it allows action despite uncertainty, and uncertainty is reduced when learning occurs during the management process. Often termed “learning by doing”, the allure of this management approach has entrenched the concept widely in agency direction and statutory mandates across the globe. This exceptional volume is a collection of essays on the past, present and future of adaptive management written by prominent authors with long experience in developing, implementing, and assessing adaptive management. Moving forward, the book provides policymakers, managers and scientists a powerful tool for managing for resilience in the face of uncertainty.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2003-04-07
Total Pages: 168
ISBN-13: 0309087287
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe report reviews a U.S. Department of the Interior research program, finding that it provides key information to support the restoration of the Florida Everglades and to better assess the impact of hydrologic change on the ecosystem. However, the program needs more funding, better management and broader distribution of its findings. The report suggests that strategic investments in Everglades research will increase the chances of reaching restoration goals while reducing overall costs.
Author: Joost Dessein
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-08-13
Total Pages: 285
ISBN-13: 1317570057
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMeeting the aims of sustainability is becoming increasingly difficult; at the same time, the call for culture is becoming more powerful. This book explores the relationships between culture, sustainability and regional change through the concept of ‘territorialisation’. This new concept describes the dynamics and processes in the context of regional development, driven by collective human agency that stretches beyond localities and marked-off regional boundaries. This book launches the concept of ‘territorialisation’ by exploring how the natural environment and culture are constitutive of each other. This concept allows us to study the characterisation of the natural assets of a place, the means by which the natural environment and culture interact, and how communities assign meaning to local assets, add functions and ascribe rules of how to use space. By highlighting the time-space dimension in the use and consumption of resources, territorialisation helps to frame the concept and grasp the meaning of sustainable regional development. Drawing on an international range of case studies, the book addresses both conceptual issues and practical applications of ‘territorialisation’ in a range of contexts, forms, and scales. The book will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduates in sustainable development, environmental studies, and regional development and planning.
Author: Craig R. Allen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13: 9780231144452
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFollowing the publication of C. S. Holling's seminal work on the relationship between animal body mass patterns and scale-specific landscape structure, ecologists began to explore the theoretical and applied consequences of discontinuities in ecosystems and other complex systems. Are ecosystems and their components continuously distributed and do they adhere to scaling laws, or are they discontinuous and more complex than early models would have us believe? The resulting propositions over the structure of complex systems sparked an ongoing debate regarding the mechanisms generating discontinuities and the statistical methods used for their detection. This volume takes the view that ecosystems and other complex systems are inherently discontinuous and that such fields as ecology, economics, and urban studies greatly benefit from this paradigm shift. Contributors present evidence of the ubiquity of discontinuous distributions in ecological and social systems and how their analysis provides insight into complex phenomena. The book is divided into three sections. The first focuses on background material and contrasting views concerning the discontinuous organization of complex systems. The second discusses discontinuous patterns detected in a number of different systems and methods for detecting them, and the third touches on the potential significance of discontinuities in complex systems. Science is still dominated by a focus on power laws, but the contributors to this volume are convinced power laws often mask the interesting dynamics of systems and that those dynamics are best revealed by investigating deviations from assumed power law distributions. In 2008, a grand conference on resilience was held in Stockholm, hosting 600 participants from around the world. There are now three big centers established with resilience, the most recent one being the Stockholm Resilience Center, with others in Australia (an international coral reef center), Arizona State University's new sustainability center focusing on anthropology, and Canada's emerging social sciences and resilience center. Activity continues to flourish in Alaska, South Africa, and the Untied Kingdom, and a new center is forming in Uruguay.
Author: David J. Rapport
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-06-29
Total Pages: 444
ISBN-13: 3642794645
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEcosystem health offers a fresh perspective on the management of natural resources and the environment. While some of the root concepts can surely be traced back to Aldo Leopold and even earlier, it is only in the recent decade that a substantial body of work has emerged on this topic. There is no question that a novel approach which is by its nature cross disciplinary, bridging the health and biological sciences, will initially raise a number of questions particularly pertaining to the use of metaphors and the validity of the analogy. This volume however goes beyond merely the philosophical dimensions of the subject by covering a number of case studies which have given rise to the development of promising quantitative methods for diagnosis and rehabilitation of ecosystems under stress. The focus of most studies is on regional ecosystems i.e. ecosystems of large scale. As such, the methods and approaches should have wide appeal to government agencies charged with the responsibility of sustainable development of regional ecosystems and natural resources. Health is one of those difficult concepts that everyone thinks they can define, until they come to try. We all have personal knowledge about health and illness and this makes the ecosystem analogy so potentially powerful. Yet it is also clear that the uncritical application of the concept could lead to overly simplistic approaches to analysis and management of ecosystem health.
Author: Jonathan Collett
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2013-04-10
Total Pages: 343
ISBN-13: 161091080X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGreening the College Curriculum provides the tools college and university faculty need to meet personal and institutional goals for integrating environmental issues into the curriculum. Leading educators from a wide range of fields, including anthropology, biology, economics, geography, history, literature, journalism, philosophy, political science, and religion, describe their experience introducing environmental issues into their teaching. The book provides: a rationale for including material on the environment in the teaching of the basic concepts of each discipline guidelines for constructing a unit or a full course at the introductory level that makes use of environmental subjects sample plans for upper-level courses a compendium of annotated resources, both print and nonprint Contributors to the volume include David Orr, David G. Campbell, Lisa Naughton, Emily Young, John Opie, Holmes Rolston III, Michael E. Kraft, Steven Rockefeller, and others.
Author: Chris Reed
Publisher: Actar D, Inc.
Published: 2014-07-01
Total Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 194515036X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe past two decades have witnessed a resurgence of ecological ideas and ecological thinking in discussions of urbanism, society, culture, and design. The field of ecology has moved from classical determinism and a reductionist Newtonian concern with stability, certainty, and order in favor of more contemporary understandings of dynamic systemic change and the related phenomena of adaptability, resilience, and flexibility. But ecology is not simply a project of the natural sciences. Researchers, theorists, social commentators, and designers have all used ecology as a broader idea or metaphor for a set of conditions and relationships with political, economic, and social implications. Projective Ecologies takes stock of the diversity ofcontemporary ecological research and theory--embracing Felix Guattari's broader definition of ecology as at once environmental, social, and existential--and speculates on potential paths forward for design practices. Where are ecological thinking and theory now? What do current trajectories of research suggest for future practice? How can advances in ecological research and modeling, in social theory, and in digital visualization inform, with greater rigor, more robust design thinking and practice? New original essays by Peter Del Tredici, Erle Ellis, Christopher Hight, Sanford Kwinter, Sean Lally, Nina-Marie Lister, Chris Reed, Jane Wolff Reprinted/excerpted essays by Robert Cook, David Fletcher, Richard T.T. Forman, C.S. Holling. With drawings by, Gross.MAX, James Corner, Field Operations, Sean Lally, Anuradha Mathur and Dilip DaCunha, OMA, Stoss Landscape Urbanism, West 8.
Author: Lance H. Gunderson
Publisher:
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 593
ISBN-13: 9780231101028
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFew aspects of American military history have been as vigorously debated as Harry Truman's decision to use atomic bombs against Japan. In this carefully crafted volume, Michael Kort describes the wartime circumstances and thinking that form the context for the decision to use these weapons, surveys the major debates related to that decision, and provides a comprehensive collection of key primary source documents that illuminate the behavior of the United States and Japan during the closing days of World War II. Kort opens with a summary of the debate over Hiroshima as it has evolved since 1945. He then provides a historical overview of thye events in question, beginning with the decision and program to build the atomic bomb. Detailing the sequence of events leading to Japan's surrender, he revisits the decisive battles of the Pacific War and the motivations of American and Japanese leaders. Finally, Kort examines ten key issues in the discussion of Hiroshima and guides readers to relevant primary source documents, scholarly books, and articles.
